“They’re not comin’, are they?” Shannon asks.
“Just keep—”
“You tell me to keep calm one more time,” she says inches from my face, “and I’m gonna bust your face!”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“We just had to go skiing on Christmas eve, didn’t we?”
“Woah…I agreed on having fun not—”
“Did I get us stuck?”
Shannon’s eyes turn to crinkled slits.
“It’s not like you had plans,” I say.
“Oh…so now, this is my fault?”
“It’s no one’s—”
“The hell it is. It’s all your fault,” Shannon says.
“No, it’s not!”
“Yes, it is!”
“What was that?” I ask as my body, and the lift jerked with terror like a kid shaking a cat out of a tree.
“I’m scared as fuck!” Shannon says, swimming air for something to grip. “I didn’t think I was gonna die like this! On Christmas eve.”
“The workers went home for the night.”
“No, I haven’t figured that out yet, you idiot,” Shannon says, throwing her hands in the air. “How high are we?”
“About twenty…no more than thirty feet.”
“Oh…great…we can jump to our death.”
“Haven’t been this annoying since—”
“Don’t even go there!” Shannon says, pointing her finger inches from my nose. “You think I’m pissed now, wait until morning!”
“Here,” I say, handing her a blanket.
“We might as well drink,” Shannon says, twisting the cork on the wine bottle she’d saved for Christmas night. She tips her head back, drinking more than appropriate for the situation, and then she lets out an echo belly belch, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “Want some?”
“I’ll take one sip,” I say, not even wanting to.
“Look!” Shannon says, thrusting upright to her feet. “There’s a snowplow!”
“Gonna give me credit now?” I ask, raising a sly brow.
Shannon screws up her face and crinkles her eyes.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. I’m gettin’ some tonight, I thought.
“Hey, over here!” Shannon’s amped-up hand waving jerked the suspended lift. “Doesn’t he see us?”
The wind swirled the snow into a sheet of a blur.
“Must think the lift is empty,” I say, sliding to the floor.
“Not comin’, are they?”
I hand her some hand warmers I’d saved from my time in the army. They were little pouches that heat to the warmth of a fire.
“More wine,” she says, twisting the cap off and tilting her head back.
“Shannon,” I say, nudging her shoulder.
“This better be important,” she says, pulling the blankets below her eyes.
“I saw the pregnancy test.”
“Looking through my things again?” Shannon shouts.
“You’re pregnant.”
“I was.”
“You lost it?” I ask.
“I got rid of it,” she says, pulling the covers over her eyes, turning her body away.
“An abortion?”
“Don’t get all self-righteous on me.”
“When were you gonna tell me?”
“They’re not comin’, are they?”
“Was it a boy or a girl?”
“Does it matter?” Shannon cried.
“Why don’t you get some rest,” I say. “The morning crew should arrive in a few hours.”
(Part One)
(© 2020 Andrew Cyr)
Short Stories| Poems 